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For all you young ones, ‘The Post’ is not about Facebook or Instagram. Rather, it is Steven Spielberg’s new film about freedom of the press, and in this day and time, it really is a message that resonates. Apparently, Spielberg rushed this in time for Oscar bait season, if only to reiterate that this as relevant today as it was in 1971 when the movie is set.

The film has megastars Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in it, playing, respectively Kay Graham and Ben Bradles. It tells the story of the publication of The Pentagon Papers, which showed the United State government deceiving the American people regarding involvement with Vietnam. The New York Times began to publish excerpts from it but the courts stopped them from further printing because of alleged threats to national security. When The Washington post got access to the same papers, they face a dilemma: should they go ahead and publish it face repercussions, which could close the paper and put its publishers in jail.

Both Hanks and Streep are great here, although really this are roles that really both could do in their sleep. There are people who say that Streep doesn’t do anything new here, and sure, the same mannerisms and tics do show up in her Kay Graham, but I think she gives a more understated performance here than usual, and I kind of liked that. Does the film feel like a rush job? I don’t particularly think so, although I think the film carries it own weight a little too much. Yes, we know freedom of the press is important but the film hammers it a little too much. It’s not the worst thing in the world, and the film is good solid entertainment. One should certainly see it.

Today millions of people – men and women – marched all over the world to raise awareness for women’s rights, to make sure women are protected, to ensure women are looked at as equals. I stand with my sisters in the world.

And it also is as good time as many to write about ‘Suffragette,” a film I have been meaning to watch for a while now. Today is as good a time as many, and of course the significance of this is even more vital. The film is set in 1918, when women in Britain starting fighting for their right to vole, and had to resort to a lot of civil disobedience to put their points across. It is a powerful message, one that resonates to this day.

I just wished I liked the film more. there are too many things going on, and I foudn myself bored by the main character of Maud. Though played with earnestness by Carey Mulligan, the character is just one of those dreary ones in drearier situations. (I have to mention the fab Ben Whishaw who plays her husband – this guy can play anything, and is effective always) Sarah Gavron puts the focus on fictional characters so when Meryl Streep shows up as militant advocate Emmeline Pankhurst, the screen lights up because you are seeing historical figures you have read about, and have some familiarity to. And the ending is bittersweet, with women’s voting rights happening a decade or so after. Still, the message is more important, and we celebrate and protest today.

My old friend Richard collects albums of bad singers. You go to his house, and he has a section of vocalists who are out of tune, out of sync, and recorded. Needless to say, he has prized possessions of the two albums that Florence Foster Jenkins (privately) recorded. I remember one of our favorite things to do then was to go to Tower Records in Lincoln Center and go through the jazz vocals section, judging discs by the covers and hoping against hope that one of these singers would be worthy enough to join his ‘awful singers’ shelf. I guess my point here is that although I am not an expert on her, I have heard a lot about La Florence from my friend, which made me more eager to see ‘Florence Foster Jenkins,’ which is the film about her.

It’s not exactly her life story, more a dramatization of the events leading up to her infamous Carnegie Hall concert. Meryl Streep plays her, in one of her larger than life performances, and she goes all out – tics, screams, arms flailing. I know she has been getting left and right raves here, but to me it rang false. From what I have heard about Jenkins, she was mostly quiet and subtle, if a lot cognizant of her deficiencies. Even though we get that on paper in the screenplay, I thought Streep played her in the opposite direction, though of course Streep is a intuitive enough actress that she knows when to to reign it in so the character isn’t a caricature. Hugh Grant, playing her companion, shows the subtlety here, and in my opinion gives the better performance even if his part is written just to react to Jenkins and her pianist Cosme Mcmoon (played with camp tendencies by Simon Helberg)

Over all, despite its oversize, Jenkins is still a small film,. It would be incorrect to call it inflated, but somehow that word also fits. Still, in this summer of frozen delight treats, this is satisfying sorbet, a tribute to anyone following her dreams as misguided some of those may be.

“Ricki And The Flash” is a nothing of a movie. Usually a Meryl Streep performance can save a middling movie (Hello, Iron Lady) but here she just seems to be trying too hard. Although Streep is considered the “greatest living actress,” her style has never really been subtle. She usually gives a “look at me” performance: look how I aced my accent, look how this tick enhanced my acting. Here that style distracts. In fact, there are a lot of thing here that distract: her braids, her smudged eyeliner, her raspy singing. Although she sings in tune, there’s an unpleasant timbre here. But the movie is entertaining enough in a Saturday afternoon matinee kind of thing: the blue haired crowd was in attendance at my theater. My takeaway from here: it infuriated me. In the movie, Streep plays Linda, who left her family to become Ricki the Rock Star. When her daughter’s husband leaves, she comes home. I know there are a lot of issues there (Diablo Cody’s script never tells us why) but the anger that these adult kids displayed to their own mother upset me. Later on, when one of her other kids gets married, Ricki gets the shabbiest treatment: a belated insincere invitation, a back-row spot at the actual wedding, a table in Siberia. Whatever the issues these kids have at their mother, she shouldn’t be treated that way. I cried – it was heartbreaking. I know that perhaps this is a weird thing to take hone from this movie, and this perhaps shows the state of my mind right now, but I just felt for her in a serious way. And, it made the tacked on ending insincere and phony.